Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
And it bothers me that either he wasn’t listening or decided to completely disregard my wishes.
“You look pissed,” he says warily.
“I’m not pissed.” I tamp down my annoyance. “I just don’t understand why you would plan this whole thing when I made it clear I’m not ready to take that step.”
“I figured you meant you weren’t ready for, like, the babies. The wedding.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t see what the big deal about an engagement is.”
“Because it’s all tied together for me. An engagement is a step toward a marriage, and a marriage is a step toward a baby, and I don’t want any of that right now.”
“So you’re telling me if I pull out this box that’s in my pocket and I ask you to marry me, you’re going to say no?” His tone is as flat as his expression.
There’s a strange clenching in my chest, making my heart contract. I never anticipated having to answer a question like that. I figured when he proposed, it would be because we were both ready. And he would know we were both ready, because I always, always tell him where I’m at emotionally. Apparently he just chose to ignore it.
“I would say…maybe?” I stammer. “I don’t know, Dean.”
“You would say maybe?” His voice is like a knife’s edge. Eyes dark and glinting. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
My jaw hardens. “And I can’t believe you didn’t listen when I said I wasn’t ready to get engaged.”
Dean takes a breath. He looks at me for a moment. I glimpse the pain in his eyes, and I know I hurt him. But he masks it quickly, his expression shuttering as he grabs his still-full wineglass and drinks half of it in one gulp.
Still gripping the glass, he meets my gaze again. “Do you love me?”
I stare at him in disbelief. “You know I do.”
“Do you see yourself with me in the future?”
“You know I do.”
“But you don’t want to marry me.”
My frustration returns in full force. “You know I want to marry you. Just not right now.”
“What difference does it make if it’s now or a year from now?” he challenges.
“Do I seriously have to explain it again? I literally just told you how I feel about it. You’re just choosing not to listen!” I draw a calming breath. “Every time we talked about it before, you said you were okay with waiting.”
“Well, maybe I’m not okay with it. Maybe I want to get married. Soon.”
“And it’s always about what you want?”
“No, apparently it’s always about what you want.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Now he’s just being an ass. “We compromise all the time. Our relationship has always been fifty-fifty, Dean, and you know it.”
“What I know is that I wanted to propose to my girlfriend tonight, and she doesn’t want to hear it, so…fuck this.”
He slams his wineglass down and scrapes back his chair. Doesn’t even look my way as he gets up and heads for the doorway.
“Dean!” I yell after him.
But he’s already stalking out of the opulent dining room. A moment later, I hear the ding of the elevator that leads to the Heyward Plaza Hotel below us.
I sit there staring at Dean’s empty chair and wonder what the hell just happened.
20
Allie
Dean isn’t speaking to me. It’s been two days since the non-proposal, and he’s officially giving me the silent treatment. To make matters worse, we had early morning shoots at work these past couple of days, which meant waking up at four a.m. to make it to the studio for my five o’clock call times. Since Dean doesn’t leave for school until eight, he was sound asleep both mornings when I left. And both afternoons when he got home from work, he refused to talk to me.
He’s acting like a child. He won’t even try to understand my reasoning, or acknowledge that maybe I’m not ready for marriage and engagements and all that grown-up stuff.
So after forty-eight hours of living in a mausoleum, when Trevor texts to invite me to a club that night with some of our costars, I’m grateful for the distraction. I tell him I’m in, and we arrange for his ride share to grab me on the way to the club in Soho.
Of course, the moment Dean finds me in our bedroom slipping into a sparkly dress is the moment he suddenly decides he’s speaking to me again.
“Where are you going?” he mutters, leaning in the doorway of our walk-in closet.
“To a club. With Trevor, Seraphina, and Malcolm. And maybe Evie. Do you want to come?”
“No.” His stony gaze tracks me as I slide into a pair of silver heels.
“You sure?” I push.
“Yes.”
I’m going to rip my hair out if he keeps this up. Gritting my teeth, I try to broach the subject for the fifty billionth time. “Can we please talk about it?”